


Gray Hour or a TV series as drawn by Pablo Picasso

by shadowkat67



Series: Dollhouse Episode Reviews [4]
Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Review, Episode: s01e04 Gray Hour, Literary References & Allusions, Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-07
Updated: 2009-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22406107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Summary: Review/Meta on Dollhouse Episode "The Gray Hour"
Series: Dollhouse Episode Reviews [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612507





	Gray Hour or a TV series as drawn by Pablo Picasso

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. For anyone out there who is having troubles keeping track of the names of the characters on this episode? Go here:  
>  <http://www.tv.com/dollhouse/gray-hour/episode/1235618/cast.html>
> 
> 2.Also here's the list of characters:  
>   
> Echo (doll/active) - also known as Taffy, a midwife (not mentioned on the site and on screen too short of time to matter), and Caroline in this episode.  
> Sierra (doll/active) (who I keep calling Serena for some reason)- also known as Taffy  
> Victor (doll/active) - also known as Lubov  
> Adelle Dewitt - the head honcho played by Olivia Williams  
> Topher Brink - the geeky programmer who wipes and imprints the actives (Also known as the writer of the active's imprint.)  
> Boyd Langton - Echo's handler  
> FBI Agent Paul Ballard - the agent hunting the dollhouse and specifically a missing person called Caroline.  
> Dr. Claire Saunders (did not appear in this episode at all)  
> Ivy - lab technician that works with Topher (I have no idea who this woman is supposed to be, but from the dialogue, it sounds like she might be one Topher's creations - which is really disturbing. )  
> Walton - Taffy's co-horts on the job (thief 1)  
> Vitas - Taffy's co-horts on the job (thief 2)  
> Antiquites Expert - who doesn't appear to have a name that I've found  
> Laurence Dominic - the second to Adelle, played by Reed Diamond.

The problem with this show is you need a map to keep track of the characters names. Which does not bode well for its survival. Also, it would help greatly if Walton, Ballard, Vitas, Lubov, and the guys Taffy was flirting with above - didn't all look alike - similar coloring, hair color and build. Lubov and theif 2 looked a bit too similar, and Ballard and thief one.The casting director must have a thing for tall, dark, and brooding men. I like them too, but this is ridiculous.

Note: if you have a convoluted plot, premise, and backstory - you do not want to add to the confusion. TV viewers by nature are not known to be patient. They tend to be fickle and after a tough day not to mention week at work? Don't want to work that hard on a Friday night to figure out a tv show. Particularly a tv show that has a disturbing and distasteful premise.

That's not to say I couldn't follow it - I did and I enjoyed it. But I also watched it on Saturday morning, after a decent breakfast, and a good night's sleep. Not on Friday, when I was spent - to the point that I was sort of nodding off, and could barely focus on much of anything. Also, I could rewind and rewatch if I so desired. Well not so much anymore, since I deleted it to make room for another tv show I'm recording on the DVR tonight. Most viewers don't necessarily fit into this category.

If you are waiting for the show to be less distasteful (or squicky)? It's not quite there yet. But, it is providing us with a bit more background on the premise, not to mention providing the lead character Echo with a bit more agency along with the other dolls. Each episode does to a degree feel like another pilot, but a more textured pilot in addition to the others. I'm told that this will end after the seventh episode - which makes sense, because that's what Whedon does with all of his tv series. The first seven episodes are sort of psuedo-stand alones that act as pilots for the series. The eighth kicks the back story in and the show suddenly takes off. This happened on Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. Whedon is the type of tv show writer that you have to be patient with and allow time to build his story. He's not going to be brilliant out of the gate like Ron Moore or Abrahams. That said, as posted in my previous reviews of Dollhouse - this show asks a lot of its audience, far more than Firefly, Buffy, or Angel ever did. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on your pov.

The episode title in this case is actually a bit more memorable and less cheesy than last episode's title, Stage Fright. But then so is the episode, even if the supporting characters all look alike. I'm wondering if they are doing this deliberately? Maybe it's just me? In which case, maybe this isn't a show I should bother with?

According to Echo/Taffy - _The Gray Hour_ \- means the hour when the security systems go offline.

The episode starts with Echo as a midwife in a remote cabin delivering a baby. The next scene is Topher removing all of Echo's memories of the birth. Then we see Echo, Sierra, and Victor sitting at a table together eating lettuce. Topher comments to Boyde that they are flocking. Herd mentality. Each day sitting together at the same table. Boyd says they aren't a herd. Topher disagrees - stating they are herdlike, like bison. Big dumb animals that you raise as meat, push and prod into a pen, and herd. I've heard actors complain about being treated like "meat" by television writers - particularly the actors on Buffy and Angel, who felt at times as if they had no say in how they were to perform the role and were forced to do whatever the writer/director requested. David Boreanze, James Marsters, Sarah Michelle Gellar Prince, Vincent Kartheiser (Connor) and others complained about it in interviews - stating that they were little more than meat and frustrated by the experience. This is not true of all tv shows - Boreanze has stated that Bones permits him to adlib and change lines. He has a producer role on the series, as does his co-star. Here, Eliza Dusku also has a producer role, which gives her a bit more control.

So, Topher may well be a stand-in for a tv show writer/creator. We get a bit more information on Topher in this episode - he's not as high level as I'd thought, but clearly necessary to the unit and potentially amongst the few that can program the actives. There's a few other programmers worldwide who can do what he does, but not as well, nor do they appear to want to. The only other person who can do what he does and better, is Alpha. That said, Topher can be fired, but Adelle doesn't want to - for reasons that she has yet to reveal.

I'm not sure if we are supposed to like Topher. He talks and acts a lot like Warren Miers from Buffy. If the actor feels familar that's because he was in Donnie Darko. And he's quite good in this role - manages to creep you out, yet at the same time, being a bit likable. He's actually more likable in the role than Adam Busch was as Miers. Considering he's a main character - that's a good thing. I don't think Topher is misogynistic, although he is awkward with women, he doesn't appear to be threatened by them. Also since many of the dolls are also male, it's not like his power to change them is limited to women. Nor does he appear to have problems with Adelle, if anything they seem to be friends, as he appears to be friends with Ivy and Dr. Saunders. The only person he doesn't get along with is Dominic. But then most people don't get along with Dominic.

Did he create the program? Not clear. He may well have or he just may be the best programmer they've ever had.

Echo is placed on assignment. The assignment we are told is potentially dangerous for the active, not all are - as evidenced by the midwife sequence - and will cost additional money, which the client provides. The next scene - we see Echo in a rather slutty outfit, at a Bachelor party, where she's doing a lap-dance. They are told by a rather burly security guard to move upstairs. The next scene - we see Taffy fleeing the party-goers with a cut on her lip, asking for help. The Guard takes her into his office and attempts to pay her $10,000 for her silence. Instead she knocks him out cold and calls to let someone know she's in. Three guys join her - two who look suspiciously like the ones she was partying with, but it's hard to tell, they are the same build and coloring as Ballard, with a bit of Lubov mixed in. If Ballard and Lubov had children? It would be these two guys. The party goers looked just like them. The third is a creepy bald guy with glasses - who I keep wanting to call Piccolo, he's the antiquities expert and to my knowledge, doesn't have a name.

Anywho - Echo it turns out is now Taffy, and Taffy is a top theif. She can crack safes, operate under high pressure situations, and is capable of running a heist. The others, Walton and Vitas (along with creepy bald guy) ask if Taffy is so amazing, why doesn't she have a rep? She says - "Have you ever heard of Bonnie and Clyde?" And makes it clear that what got them killed was they were hunting notariety. After this - she's just going to disappear. They are to forget she ever existed when she's done. Ironic, considering that is literally what will happen, Taffy will cease to exist, until they have to pull her out again, like you might slip a CD into your computer.

Turns out that the artwork they are being paid to steal was already stolen. The hotel stores stolen art. And the bit they have to take is the Parthenon. Not the whole thing, just a piece of it - I think. This isn't that clear either. Not that it matters, the plot unlike _Leverage_ is not really about the heist. It's about what happens after the creepy bald guy takes off with the piece of the parthenon.

Taffy and her two co-horts get stuck in the safe, with less than 20 minutes until the doors open. Taffy calls it in to Boyd, and just before she can hang up - a high pitched frequency interfers with the call. This frequency erases all memory of Taffy and works in the same way as a memory wipe - except as Topher explains, without all the comforting sounds and environment. Being wiped Topher tells us is like being born (disturbing analogy that and not one I think the writers really want use here but apparently are insistent on using what with the whole midwife scene at the start of the show. So, the actives go from being innocent babies to whatever personality or imprint that a job calls for, and back to being innocent babies at the end of it? Yeah, that's going to definitely attract more viewers, no problemo. Joss, you are making it really hard for me to defend this show to people, you know that, right?) The good news is Topher insists they have to do something to help Echo. Also, it's not his fault - since he didn't see this coming and there's only one person who could potentially do it and that person's dead. (Apparently Topher was told that Alpha was dead by Adelle Dewitt.)

Meanwhile Echo is suffering from sensory overload and has curled up into a ball. While her two-cohorts are trying not to panic. Vitas, the explosives expert, who was stabbed in the chest by creepy bald guy, is lying on the floor thinking death sounds really good right now. While Walton, tall dark and not Ballard, is busy trying to wake up Taffy. Vitas finally tells Walton - "Taffy is not coming back, deal." Well, that's not exactly true - Adelle and Topher are attempting to bring her back just in a different way. They have decided to turn Sierra into Taffy. Of course as Seirra/Taffy now informs everyone at Dollhouse headquarters - there's no way on earth she's going to be able to break down the door and retrieve Chowderhead in 9 minutes. They'll be lucky to make to the garage in that amount of time. Apparently Taffy has never watched 24 - Jack Bauer can fly a helicopter and dismantle a bomb in ten. And why didn't they choose "her" - as in Taffy, not Sierra, to begin with? They sort of did, she just got wiped, so they had to do it again on someone else. Would have happened regardless of which doll got chosen or so I'm guessing.

Echo, who has no clue who she is at the moment, is chatting with Vitas - and looking at what appears to be a painting by [Picasso](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso). (Could be Van Gough, but I'm guessing Picasso. It looks like the portrait of Dora Maar au Chair. Picasso could draw anything, reproduce it exactly as it looked, after a while he got bored and started deliberately drawing and painting objects as they felt not looked - in an abstract manner. ) The face of the woman in the picture is distorted. Echo says the picture seems wrong somehow, there's something wrong with the woman's face. Vitas replies that the other painters paint what they see - the reality of what is on the surface, this painter is painting what is on the inside, what lies beneath the surface - how we are all broken inside. How part of us slides down and gets distorted over time. "Broken?" repeats Echo.

This is one of the themes of the series and a hint at what the writers are attempting to convey. Some writers such as the writers of Bones, American Idol (yes American Idol has writers, believe it or not), or say Law & Order or even Friday Night Lights - are writing reality. What we see. We don't go beneath the surface. The picture is not distorted. In art - the realistic movement - was very technical based, every hair, eye, door, and leaf was painted as if the eye was a camera photographing it. In Hyper-realism - that is extended, until you can literally see pores or the person in the portrait is in 3 D and you think, oh, they are real? In impressionism, and abstract paintings as well as a portion of the modernist and post-modernist movements, the artist was not interested in what they saw, so much as what they felt about what they saw, the interior. Same is true in tv shows - BattleStar Galatica, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Lost, and Dollhouse are tv shows that are psychological and about the interior of the human soul, not the exterior. Not that Bones, Friday Night Lights or Law and Order don't also delve into that, but those shows do it through dialogue mostly or situations perhaps, but not visually, they aren't as interested in how we are broken on the inside, in examining the flaws, the parts that slide.

Another way of putting it is - Dollhouse is a tv show as drawn by Picasso. Picasso's pictures at times feel like puzzles we have to figure out, they puzzle the eye - same is true about Dollhouse. The abstract movement that Picasso helped usher in is not appealing to everyone. They aren't necessarily paintings we want to look at for long, they don't comfort us, and they often give us nightmares - invoke feelings of distaste and if you will excuse the term squick (which is the only word I can think of that sounds like nails on a chalkboard).Dollhouse is much the same way.

The other painting that Echo is looking at with Vitas is one of mountains and Blue Skies. This is Taffy's phrase much like Faith's - "five by five" - here it is "Blue Skies". When she states it - it's in your face, sarcastic, confident, I care about nothing, blue skies ahead. Here, Echo looks at it dreamily, hoping for blue skies and when she asks Vitas what prison is like, he says, it's the opposite of the picture, no blue skies.

While Adele, Taffy/Sierra and Topher are attempting to contact Echo, who remains clueless that she even has a phone let alone what to do with one, Boyd finally calls Topher and asks what's going on. Topher clues Boyd in - shocked he doesn't know, and tells him to grab the antiquities expert (creepy bald guy who looks like he stepped out of an old vampire movie)  
and try to collect and neutralize Echo. (Okay, this is Boyd, do you really think he'll neutralize Echo?) Taffy/Sierra finally gets Echo. This is after Vitas attempts to kill himself with resin in a nasty needle (at least I think it's resin and I'm wondering if the writers are watching the same shows I am - because that's exactly what the character used on Chuck this week - talk about collective unconsciousness). Walton stops him, saying oh, no you don't, you aren't getting out that easily and suggests they shoot their way out instead. It's either that or prison. What's a prison? Echo asks. She's told it's a place where you aren't free to do what you want and stuck or something to that effect - another ironic jibe at the Dollhouse.

Throughout this sequence and the episode, Victor and Echo state the phrase "try my best", our goal is to "try our best". Not give up. This seems to be their shared motivating factor or the innate personality that lies beneath all the imprinting and can't be wiped away. Sort of goes against the Lockian view that everthing is imprinted and not innate.

When Taffy/Sierra gets hold of Echo and tells her how to break out - it doesn't work. It's too late and only sets off the alarm. Taffy tells them she still gets the money and she's not going to forget the money, but the rest is wiped clean. Adelle/Topher give Taffy the money and send her to her treatment, where she's wiped and forgets about the money. (Yet another jibe at the whole let's forget everything premise of the show and what that really entails.)

It's at this point, that Echo is put in a position in which she must save herself, much as she was in Target. It's not Taffy driving right now or anyone else. It's Echo herself. She chooses to sacrifice Walton - who wants to send her out in front of him shooting and is the one who was flirting with Taffy at the beginning of the episode and oogling her breasts.  
The sacrifice, it should be noted, is in self-defense, Walton attempted to push Echo out there with a gun - fully knowing she'd get killed. While Vitas had told her to raise her hands above her head and surrender. And it's Vitas who provides her with the means to take out Walton - the aforementioned resin needle. Vitas also tells her to run. She doesn't - this where Echo's innate personality and agency takes over - she goes out of her way to save Vitas and Boyd finds her supporting Vitas as she stumbles out of the corridor. She tells Boyd -"he's broken. But I'm not broken." Boyd agrees. "No you aren't."

This a common thread in each episode - Echo goes out of her way to save an innocent or wounded person. In episode one - she saves the little girl, in two - she saves a wounded Boyd, in three - she saves Audra/Sierra, and in four - she saves Vitas. In one and four - Sierra is sent in to save Echo, she doesn't really succeed in either and if anything either makes things worse or just allows for Echo's agency to take over. The idea of saving people speaks to who Caroline is and what Caroline told Adelle in the flashback in episode one.  
"I just wanted to help people."

Also from each episode - Echo picks up something. Little things. Barely noticable. Can't remember what it was from the first one. The second, Target, it was shoulder to the wheel or the salute or try my best, the third - it was a friendly reaction to Sierra, which actually may be an extension of what happened in episode one, and in the fourth - it's the concept of being broken. At the end of this episode, we see her looking in to the fogged glass of her mirror and drawing a face similar to the one in the portrait, then smearing it and looking at her own. Wondering perhaps if she is broken.

The side story - what is going on parrallel to all of the above - is Agent Ballard's relentless pursuit of the Dollhouse, in particular a woman named Caroline who has been missing for quite some time and looks like Echo (or rather is Echo). Ballard no longer knows what to think of Victor/Lubov. He clearly doesn't believe Lubov's story. As he states - if they kill you, I'll know if they were really Russian. It's still not clear what Ballard's motivation is to track down the Dollhouse. This is a problem with the series that needs to be addressed soon. It's fine to have unanswered questions, but if you have too many and refuse to answer them - you risk alienating your audience. People can only handle being teased for so long, before they bail and watch something else. Too many tv shows and too little time.  
Friday Night Lights is quite good and much less frustrating to watch than Dollhouse. As is any number of tv shows opposite this one. Also, while I can guess at the answers to some of these questions - they aren't clear and some defy logic. Yes, Ballard is clearly obsessed with missing person cases and has had a lot of failed cases making him look bad to the department - but part of the reason for that is his obsession with the Dollhouse and refusal to accept far more logical and realistic rationals. From what I saw of the previews for next week - I'm guessing some of this will addressed directly. And the government may well know about Dollhouse and be using it themselves.

Lubov has been sent by Adelle, partially as a means of appeasing her faceless supervisors, to distract Ballard. "We'll send him the active again, give him closure, that's what we do."  
Except it doesn't quite work out as she expected. Ballard tells Lubov, he doesn't believe him and believes Lubov or someone else set him up to be killed and ambushed. Ballard shows Lubov the picture of Echo/Caroline - but Lubov denies knowing her. I could not tell if Lubov recognized her or not from their interaction.

What we learned from that interaction is Caroline is a missing person that someone, besides Ballard, is missing or Ballard wouldn't be looking for her or know she is missing. This was brought up before, but it is to a degree underlined here. She's been missing for quite some time, at the very least 10 years. We're also told by Adelle - that there is someone clearly above her, calling the shots, who she has to answer to. And finally that Ballard is a bit of a thorn in the Dollhouse's side, which they are attempting to handle.

The show ends with Adelle telling a somewhat defensive Topher, who is afraid he'll be fired for the incident, that he's correct - Alpha did it and Alpha is still alive. She's upping his security clearance - so he must sign the applicable form. Also Alpha is what they created.

So, we know that an active exists who is basically a super-genius, which they created. The Dollhouse apparently creates actives who are a bit like Mary Sue characters - superbly and almost abnormally skilled in whatever the mission requires. The perfect outdoorsman. The perfect mid-wife, the perfect thief, the perfect body-guard, etc. The previews for next weeks episode - provides us with the perfect cover for a cult. Human robots to complete a mission, be wiped, then start another one. Bison raised to be your dream whatever. It's not really prostitution, but it is just as distastful and an interesting commentary on American culture.  
(I can't really speak for the rest of the world, so I'm stating American.)

In American culture - there is a need to be the best. To try your best. To be a superhero or superhuman. To not show pain or stress or anxiety. To create the best product imaginable.  
To solve all the problems. We even hold awards shows - awarding the best and brightest.  
Weakness, infirmity, blemishes, and flaws are barely tolerated. I think to an extent Dollhouse the series is commenting on this view. It also likewise comments on how pieces of other people, things they've done, who they are, are taken and molded into something else. Even other cultures. Taffy is a composite of multiple people, just as Ellen, Audra, and all the others were. The characters names are almost irrelvant...and the word Echo signifies what is left each time we wipe the slate clean. We keep wiping people, putting on new noses, new faces, trying on new coats, and new clothes and new personas, even new languages, but losing what is underneath it all.

The idea of identity is nothing new and what comprises someone's identity has long been argued in forums much loftier than this one. Is it what people say about us? Our notoriety? We never heard of you - Walton and Vitas tell Taffy. But we've heard of Bonnie and Clyde. Yet are Bonnie and Clyde - really the characters that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway played in the movie, or someone else? Is our identity - the face we show the world, or the face we look into in the mirror? Is it what we look like? Is it comprised of our actions? What we say? Are we someone else to everyone we meet? On the internet you can have a variety of identities. And faces.

Just read my posts - you'll see how my writing style often twists and turns. In my last post on Dollhouse, I got all the names wrong, except Echo and Topher and Boyd and Ballard, and I used a lot of slang. This post is written a bit more carefully. Have I changed? No. And yes. People change. We grow older. And we look at things differently. Our attitudes change. Dollhouse poses the question - what if we wiped the memories away, would we still learn, still evolve? How much is muscel memory? How much is innate? How much of who we are is not defined by environment or memory or experience or those who surround us, but ourselves? And how much isn't? How much can be manipulated and inserted?

It's the writer's question as well. Where in the story do the characters take over? Do we as writers really have control over who our characters are? Do they evolve on their own?  
And if you are a tv writer - to what degree do you have control? Dollhouse reminds me a little of the abstract play - Six Characters in Search of An Author by Pirandella, which I saw performed in a theater in London in 1987. At least I think it was 1987, might of been '88. At any rate, the play is about an author with writers block who basically abandons his characters and tells them to do whatever. The characters struggle in the play to find themselves, just as Echo struggles in this episode to figure out who she is and how to save herself and Vitas. Walton - I think she decided wasn't worth the effort - after he slapped her and tried to get her killed. "Six Characters" like "the Gray Hour" is about finding yourself through action, through experience. Then it ends and everyone goes back to square one, to start the process all over again. A continuous rewind, repeat, rewind.

The Gray Hour, back to the beginning of this review. The Gray Hour - when security and the electronics go offline. Taffy goes offline, and Echo comes to the fore - the personality that sits in the Gray hour when she doesn't have the electronically inserted imprint. Where she's non-communicato to the Dollhouse and unable to chat with Boyd. I read in the paper the other day - that 98% of those surveyed in some country, can't remember which, were more upset when they lost their internet connection then when they weren't with loved ones. And no Facebook and the web did not cause autism and dehumanization. Without the internet or tv or electronics, we live in the gray hour. The pre-information age. Where we had to work for it and it wasn't handed or provided to us with the click of a button. How do you survive in the gray hour? Is this when you learn who you are - without the distractions?

Does Echo reside in the Gray Hour? The echo of all the electronic information fed into her brain but not really there or not enough to make much difference. No, what resides is instinct. Who we are. The innate. Strip the rest away, and you get to the core. The person behind all the layers and broken jigsaw pieces.


End file.
